Copy Salesforce Matrix Report Into Excel

As much as we’d like to keep and share data in the cloud it’s sometimes necessary to take your salesforce data and place it in a spreadsheet to share with others.  You can always export the detail view (tabular view with one row per record) into a .csv or .xls format.  However, sometimes it’s beneficial to be able to take your summarized matrix view and paste directly into Excel.  Especially in cases where you may have written a lot of complex report formulas (these don’t export unless you use “Printable View”) or added other aggregations: sum, min, max, avg.  In order to replicate in Excel you would need to create a pivot table on the detailed export.  Why rebuild if you don’t have to?

Check Boxes: The Issue With Copying and Pasting From Salesforce Matrix Reports

The primary issue with copying and pasting from Salesforce matrix reports is that the copy/paste includes the checkboxes on the left side of the table.  I’ll show you how to get rid of those pesky boxes and copy/paste like a pro!  Note – you can also use the “Printable View” button, however this trick works in a pinch and works for more than just reports as noted below!

Step 1: Copy the entire table as displayed below.

Very important to copy every cell, so start above the table if necessary to ensure you’ve copied the first and last cells.

Step 2: Ctrl + c to Copy!

Step 3: Paste into Excel.

See the checkboxes in column A?  You can delete the column or try selecting them with your mouse, and still you won’t be able to remove them using those methods!  We’ll show you how you can select the checkboxes, so you can remove them!

Step 4: Press F5 and click “Special…”

Step 5: Select “Objects” and click OK.

Step 6: Now the checkboxes are selected, so hit the “Delete” key on your keyboard to get rid of them!

Step 7: Now the formatting needs some work.

Step 8: Remove Column A.  Fix colors, borders, font and size.  Now you have one version of a Salesforce Matrix Report in Excel without the check boxes!

Other Salesforce Tables

This trick also works for other Salesforce tables that you want to copy and paste from, like a list of standard or custom fields on an object:

You can just highlight, copy & paste and then use the trick above to remove the “Indexed” fields and/or check box images.

Conclusion

This saves you time from rebuilding and ensures accuracy (no more copying and pasting individual #’s).  You can keep the formulas and summaries that you worked so hard to build in Salesforce and get them into Excel for your users who need them presented this way.  Please remember to also try the “Printable View” button which also may meet your needs, however it won’t work for lists of fields and other tabular data out of your Salesforce org!  Do you have any other tips and suggestions for working with Salesforce reports in Excel?  I would love to hear them!  Comment below or tweet them @SFDC_r!